Extinction
by Urbia
Summary: There is Paradise, and then there is that distant place where the forgotten roam for an eternity, the land of Extinction. Perhaps this is the sort of place wolves would end up if Kiba failed to find Paradise. Rated for extreme violence.


A moist gust flew from flaring nostrils, pushed through long channels deep in his furrowed muzzle. The wolf paced, heavy paws gripping the moss and dirt at the ends of his elegant strides. He sniffed again. A strange presence meandered out of the land he drank with his senses. It crept, slow-moving. It heeded no marking, no scratching, moving through the territory like a deaf, dumb overgrown cub that never knew its mother's cuff of discipline, innocently exceeding its boundaries. Howled over the fog of several nights, all songs of ownership went ignored. Now, through the criss-crossing web of gnarled branches and fronds, the interloper invaded the heart of his territory. 

Steamy breaths shot through the yellowed fangs of the wolf's parted muzzle. Then lips squared tight, pushed forward. A bark of warning punctured the curtain of wind-woven sighs.

The slow treads stopped, then started again. A tawny head emerged from the undergrowth. Its sockets offered the opaque brown gaze of barn-yard cow, but the creature's shape, partially broken by the leaves wreathing her body, vaguely resembled that of the wolf. With a glance at the alpha male, and single slow blink, she stepped fully into sight.

Blunt claws stressed into tender moss, and he lunged. The silver tips of raised hackles caught the gaze of the moon, reflecting off his body like a cool halo, exaggerating his dimensions. He puffed and snarled over the leafy hiss of his steps, the land blurring around the striped target, caught in the center of his narrow carnivore gaze. The crack of her maw widened, dividing her face into two. She waited for him with a triangular grimace.

Blood flecked onto rock. A small flap of striped hide hung loose. The wolf met the thylacine.

The attack jostled her into a guarded position, her shoulder exposed with a splash of red. Rotating her powerful frame on limber legs, she faced him while he circled, their ears twitching with their restless footfalls. Piercing yellow eyes followed the large domes of brown. Silence filled their mouths. All warnings evaporated into the air, expired of purpose, meaningless to the beasts that consented death battles.

Built for weightless grace despite the deception of his extravagant cloak, the slender wolf weaved and turned while the thylacine aligned herself, fretting the earth, paw after clumsy paw. His opportunity came when her front legs crossed, and he charged again. Too slow, she countered, her breath whistling against his fur while he caught her flank and pulled. Her weight preserved the very balance he fought to destroy. Long fangs ripped away from the thylacine's tough hide, her compact body jerking at his hit. He danced away on nimble feet, safe from the broad snap of her powerful face. They separated, pacing, surrounded by the forest scent that misted up to meet them from the trampled terrain: a mixture of growth and rot, life and death.

He broke into a run, his swiftness spurred by her lack of it. Cocked behind the gray streak of his body, his tail waved his expectation of easy victory, high and bent with the aggression that propelled his vicious dance. Fanged attacks clashed with narrow misses. She lunged at him repeatedly, every haphazard toss of her body balanced by the heavy rudder of her tail. Hollow snaps marked her every failure. Every union left a gash. Her coarse fur grew dark from shallow wounds, from bites that failed to commit. A flash of her monster jaws and he would pull back, circling for a better opening that would mean quick victory. She stumbled, panting, threads of clear saliva streaming from her mouth, while he frothed red, eyeing her jugular.

An ankle flexed over a rock, dipping that striped hip from which blood bubbled as from a spring. Yellow eyes swirled around her lopsided, staggering body. The gray chest rammed into her haunches. A canid foreleg trapped her hind limb, tightening, driving the dew claw into her sinew. She splayed, feet turning over pebbles as he dragged her around, gripping and pulling with panted excitement. Any dog might have gone down, but her broad heels slapped the moss and she stood like no creature he's encountered, her forequarters leaving the ground. Her undersides heaved, exposed to attack, from throat to pouch. He steeled and flew at her. In his zeal to destroy, he sacrificed his deadly dance in pursuit of that elevated jugular vein, forepaws abandoning the topsoil, the earth no longer his ally.

At that moment, her jaw unhinged at an unexpected angle.

His beloved territory disappeared, her maw wrapped around his eyes. He felt her body jerk at impact before grinding in, massive paws fumbling over his bristling back. She squared against the forest path, towing his neck along at an obscene angle. The yelp was his own, the last sound he heard. She executed him with a wet, shattering crack. Memories of pack leadership flowed pink and gray, out the sides of her mouth.


End file.
